Patch, the mascot of International Hearing Dog, responds to a phone call.

Myrna Wood, a school employee in Great Bend, Kan., has been hard of hearing since an unsuccessful surgery in 1973.

That’s a big problem for an outgoing woman in her 60s who loves music and playing around on a keyboard. She has worn a hearing aid for years.

In February, Myrna was teamed up with a poodle/terrier mix trained as a hearing dog at International Hearing Dog , Inc. (IHDI) in Henderson, Colo.

It was love at first sound.

“KiKi has given me such a great feeling of security,” Wood said in an email last week. “She hears sounds in my neighborhood that I was not aware of.

“The fact that she will let me know when the telephone rings and when someone comes to the door is important. But above all, I would never hear the smoke alarm and I know she will let me
know if that ever goes off.”

Kiki is one of more than 1,100 canines trained as hearing dogs by IHDI since its founding in 1979.The dogs learn to respond to many sounds in the home. such as the door bell or knock, telephone ring, alarm clock, smoke alarm or baby cries.

Dogs, which have been trained by positive reinforcement, then touch the client and that signals the person to go to the source.

Candidate dogs are found in metro area animal shelters, said executive director Valerie Foss-Brugger, and they are prized for their aim-to-please personalities.

Myrna Wood can testify to that attribute.

“She is the best companion there could ever be for me,” Wood wrote. “She is always beside me no matter what I am doing.”

It takes time and money to train a dog such as Kiki, Foss-Brugger said. Training, which takes 6 to 8 months, is customized for the intended recipient. It costs $7,000 to train, care and place one dog.

IHDI, with eight staff members. depends on donations, grants and foundations to subsidize it’s work, Foss-Brugger said. It helps that the nonprofit sits on state Division of Wildlife land that it leases for $1 a year.

Recipients get the dogs free of charge. To qualify, they must have at least a 65 percent hearing loss and there must not be other dogs in the house. There is a five-page application to
fill out.

After IHDI was founded in the ’70’s by Foss-Brugger’s mother and three other women, the nonprofit networked through local service clubs to find prospective recipients. Now, according
to Foss-Brugger, IHDI “does a lot of deaf conventions” to make people aware.

IHDI has also worked in other countries to get hearing dog programs started, such as Japan and Norway.

IHDI has three upcoming fundraisers. One is an April 10 performance at the Bovine Metropolis Theater in Denver, called “Comedy for a Cause.” The nonprofit also is selling
discount tickets to the Colorado Rockies game versus the L.A. Dodgers on May 30, and to Elitch Gardens for select dates in May.

Toni and Mike Phillips have operated the nonprofit, known for providing sanctuary for pit bulls no longer permitted in Denver and other communities, since 2003.

“We are determined to find a safe place for the dogs,” Toni Phillips said tlast week. “Ideally, we’d like to find a vacated boarding kennel where we could move the dogs without upsetting them too much.” She said the fate of 87 dogs – 65 of them pit bulls – depend on the move.

Phillips cited the economy, which has adversely affected the Phillips’ personal custom sheet metal business – which is the primary support for the sanctuary.

According to the Lamar Ledger, a minimum of 18 dogs were found at a home at 209
North 13th in the eastern Plains town after authorities found an elderly woman under a pile of trash. She was taken for medical treatment.

Nick Fisher, CEO of the South Platte Valley shelter, said it has taken in more than 170 dogs and cats from other welfare organizations since it opened in December. Contact: 303-703-2938 or hsspv.org.
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“Therapy animals are used in a variety of settings to reduce stress, increase social skills and connect with people,” said Amy McCullough, program manager for American Humane’s Animal-Assisted Therapy program.

Renamed sanctuary to open - The grand re-opening of the Denkai Animal Sanctuary’s new Adoption Center, formerly the K9 Bed and Biscuit located at14253 Hwy. 392 in Greeley, will be April 10 f rom 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The public is invited. The event will include adoptable horses, dogs and cats,

Travel and OutWest editor Kyle Wagner grew up in Pittsburgh and lived in Lake County, Ill., and Naples, Fla., before moving to Denver in 1993, where she reviewed restaurants for Westword before moving to The Denver Post in 2002. She considers the best days to be those that involve her teenage daughters and doing something outside, preferably mountain biking or whitewater rafting.

Dean Krakel is a photo editor (primarily sports) at The Denver Post. A native of Wyoming, he has authored three books, "Season of the Elk," "Downriver" and "Krakel's West." An avid kayaker, rafter, mountain biker, trail runner, telemark skier and backpacker, Dean's outdoor adventures have taken him around the world.

Douglas Brown was raised about 30 miles west of Philadelphia in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where he spent a lot of time running around in the woods and fields (where he hunted and explored), and in the ocean (where he surfed and stared at the horizon). Now he lives in Boulder and spends as much time hiking, running, skiing and boarding the High Country (and the Boulder foothills) as possible.

Ricardo Baca is the entertainment editor and pop music critic at The Denver Post, as well as the founder and executive editor of Reverb and the co-founder of The UMS. Happy days often involve at least one of these: whitewater rafting, snowshoeing, vintage Vespas, writing, camping, live music, road trips, snowboarding or four-wheeling.